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The median home value in Taylor, TX is $118,600. This is higher than the county median home value of $107,700. The national median home value is $170,100. The average price of homes sold in Taylor, TX is $118,600. Approximately 60.38% of Taylor homes are owned, compared to 27.58% rented, while 12.04% are vacant. Taylor real estate listings include condos, townhomes, and single family homes for sale. Commercial properties are also available. If you see a property you're interested in, contact a Taylor real estate agent to arrange a tour today! Learn more about Taylor Real Estate.
Property sold "AS IS" Tenant occupied. 24 HOUR Notice For Showing ! Lot of Bang for the Buck ! Needs Tender Loving Care. Back Deck of house allows you to fish in this nearly two acre stocked pond, good grazing and multiple storage buildings. Spacious house with a lot of nice features but does have its problems. Not going to find many properties like this at this price.
Large 4 bed 2 bath home. Backs to school. Quiet neighborhood.
Quite street for a beautiful restored home. Open floor plan, updated bright kitchen with built in oven, cook top and spacious cabinet. Large master bath with jetted garden tub, separate shower and large double vanity. Back yard retreat (almost 1/4 acre) fenced with trees and great covered patio for anytime of year. Large shed in back of lot with electricity of multi purpose use. Fence has gate leading to back yard.
Rare find, Like a time capsule. 3-2 home is a well maintained older home on a huge lot with a 1 Bedroom (705Sqft wcad) apartment over the garage. Huge yard with nice trees, lush lawn and landscaping. Storage shed. Original tile in the Bathroom and Kitchen has all the original old charm. Appears to have those hardwood floors under the carpet. Plumbing updates under home. new shingles 2012,Last photos are of Apartment over garage that has full kitchen & bath, living and Dining. Wont' last so hurry!!
Wonderful open layout for entertaining and family events. Huge back patio for enjoying the outdoors and expansive backyard space for the kids or pets.Minutes from Downtown Taylor, shopping and dining, this great home is located in a highly sought after location. Fully Equipped with nice appliances.
WATER!! is precious, and this land has lots of water. 900 ft frontage on Pecan Creek, plus a year-round spring, and 1/4ac spring-fed pond 17 ft deep. Auxiliary 2,500 gallon water tank for household consumption supplements delicious spring-fed water. Small chicken house, cattle shed, saddle shed, and hay barn. Pastures improved with coastal. Cropland for corn, sorghum, or cotton. South of Granger Lake. Blackland Prairie soil to Maybe grow grapes, or plant pecan trees along Pecan Creek.
Charming 1940 home with wrap around front porch on approx Acre lot
**1 HOUR NOTICE PLEASE - Pets need to be kenneled.** Large home with formal dining, loft area btwn Master and other bedrooms - all upstairs. Well cared for, comfortable home, excellent location to shopping in Taylor, access to main corridors to Austin metro area. Agents - Law Enforcement Officer home - one closet is kept locked as it is used as weapons safe. Curtains in Man Cave, BR's 2, 3, FR, Surround Sound and TV Mount in Man Cave do not convey.
Site ready for commercial improvement. Please check with City of Taylor for all utilities available as well as zoning uses.
Beautifully well taken care of large 4093sqft home. 4 over-sized bedrooms with Master downstairs, 3 large living areas, formal dining room, office at entry, breakfast area, open kitchen with lots of cabinet space and large island. Theater room upstairs wired for sound. Back covered patio with storage building. Home is in new-like condition and only a small walk around the corner to Park, Pool, School, and HEB.
Real Living Select 2911 A.W. Grimes Blvd. Pflugerville, TX 78660 Email Us | Visit our Real Estate Website


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active: about 1455 - about 1499 Flanders Scribe Flemish
Nicolas Spierinc was one of the most gifted and audacious of the Flemish scribes and illuminators working in the late 1400s. While creating elegant and extremely legible calligraphy, he often embellished his script with elaborately flourished letters, known as cadelles, elongating the descenders or ascenders of the letters into the margin where they seem to take on a life of their own. In 1455 Spierinc enrolled as a student of medicine at the University at Louvain, where the registrar described him as a scribe. Whether he completed his training or ever worked as a doctor is not known, but he did continue working as a scribe and illuminator. In the 1460s and 1470s, he made several books for Charles the Bold, frequently collaborating with Lieven van Lathem. Commissions from Charles include a book of decrees explaining the roles and duties of high-ranking court officials and a tiny prayer book. In 1476 Spierinc settled in Ghent, where he owned several homes, a sign of his prosperity.
Text Page Flemish, 1469 Text Page Flemish, 1469 Text Page Flemish, 1469 Text Page Flemish, 1469 Text Page Flemish, 1469

subset: commoncrawl


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Looking for feed back from anyone who has taken classes from TDI in West Union Ohio.I have considered taking Handgun Levels I-III.Three day course 1800 round minimum.
Thank you!
Tactical Defense Institute - Levels 1-3 handgun
This is a discussion on Tactical Defense Institute within the Defensive Carry & Tactical Training forums, part of the Defensive Carry Discussions category; Looking for feed back from anyone who has taken classes from TDI in West Union Ohio.I have considered taking Handgun Levels I-III.Three day course 1800 ...
Looking for feed back from anyone who has taken classes from TDI in West Union Ohio.I have considered taking Handgun Levels I-III.Three day course 1800 round minimum.
Thank you!
Tactical Defense Institute - Levels 1-3 handgun
Last edited by Hablutzel; August 11th, 2009 at 06:47 PM. Reason: spelling
While I have not attended TDI I have not heard bad about them from people I respect.
IIRC Dave Spaulding teaches there at times, or did at one time. He's a first class act. If it was my money I would have no reservation with parting with it to learn at TDI.
You may want to PM Sixto, as I believe he is familiar with TDI, or at least may know more about them than I do.
Sixto isn't doing anything, being that he's sitting at home in a cast.
On the topic of Firearms training, has anybody heard of Front Sight Firearms Institute in Las Vegas? (Front Sight Firearms Training Institute). I'd never heard of them but they started advertising on talk radio in the Washington DC area, which I found suprising and mildly amusing. Anybody know if they are decent/legit?
I thought everybody had heard of Front Sight?
While I have not attended any courses there, and most likely won't, I can't give an opinion on them. Anything I say will be hearsay, but I do understand that they come with some "baggage".
There are too many "top name" and very good "second tier" schools to even consider one that has "baggage". Clint Smith is in OR and Gunsight is in AZ. That's enough to choose from as far as I'm concerned.
Remember, if you are subjected to a courtroom over a shooting, your training will be called into question. Not only that, but so will the reputation of those that trained you. That gives me pause in whom I consider training with.
Thanks Biker for that background. I wasn't considering them but more just curious (and suspicious) because they were advertising on the radio. I would think a quality school would stand on reputation and word of mouth and not need to advertise on mass media to get enough students to stay in business.
That said, I've read a lot of Massad Ayoob so when I can carve out the time & money for a course it will probably be at LFI.
LFI is great.
It took me twenty years to get there, but well worth the money. I did "cheat" though, as I too had been reading Mas for a long time before I took the class.
I'm looking to do LFI II, but I also want to take some other courses, with different Instructors. Now that I've laid the "foundation" so to speak with training outside of my various employers, I'm starting to spread my wings a little.
I have taken two classes from TDI, and plan to take more as time & finances allow. The first was their Defensive Knife course given at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, and a 2 day snubbie revolver class last May. Ed Lovette was supposed to guest instruct but had to cancel due to illness. Both classes were excellent. A number of the students had taken multiple classes there.
Since this is the same subject, Can I ask about Tactical Response in Camden? The do mobile classes where they go to different locations.
Tactical Response
My bro lives in Nashville so I may be able to do that and work in a visit to my bro.
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.
Patrick Henry
Originally Posted by UnklFungus


text: Men's Personalised Tablet Necklace by Chambers & Beau £52.50$100.16€69.12$87.90 5 customer reviews(5) In stock £2.75$5.24€3.62$4.60 mainland UK delivery - Order now and receive this item on or before Friday 30 January £2.75$5.24€3.62$4.60 mainland UK deliveryEstimated delivery: 2-5 days £9.70$18.50€12.77$16.24 Express Next Day 1pm - Order now and receive this item on or before Tuesday 27 January Express delivery available International delivery available necklace typenecklace type (required)mini tablet on cordmini tablet on silver chain (+ £50)maxi tablet on cord (+ £25)maxi tablet on silver chain (+ £75)double tablet on cord (+ £75)double tablet on silver chain (+ £125)necklace type (required)mini tablet on cordmini tablet on silver chain (+ $95.39)maxi tablet on cord (+ $47.69)maxi tablet on silver chain (+ $143.09)double tablet on cord (+ $143.09)double tablet on silver chain (+ $238.48)necklace type (required)mini tablet on cordmini tablet on silver chain (+ €65.83)maxi tablet on cord (+ €32.91)maxi tablet on silver chain (+ €98.75)double tablet on cord (+ €98.75)double tablet on silver chain (+ €164.58)necklace type (required)mini tablet on cordmini tablet on silver chain (+ $83.71)maxi tablet on cord (+ $41.85)maxi tablet on silver chain (+ $125.57)double tablet on cord (+ $125.57)double tablet on silver chain (+ $209.28) cord colourcord colourdark brownblackgreybeigecord colourdark brownblackgreybeigecord colourdark brownblackgreybeigecord colourdark brownblackgreybeige text for mini tablet (20 characters max) text for maxi tablet (40 characters max) quantity by Chambers & Beau Location: Devon, GB read seller's profile see seller's complete range more items from this seller Personalised Reversible Cufflinks £110$209.86€144.83$184.17 Personalised Money Clip £87.50$166.94€115.21$146.50 Personalised Silver Identity Bracelet £40$76.31€52.66$66.97 Personalised Sequin Date Cufflinks £95$181.25€125.08$159.05 Personalised Daddy Key Ring £125$238.48€164.58$209.28 Men's Personalised Love Bead Necklace £57.50$109.70€75.71$96.27 view all you may also like PRODUCT DETAILS CUSTOMER REVIEWS DELIVERY RETURNS Made in Britain can be personalised ask seller a question Precious Medals - captures the spirit of personal endeavours! A perfect gift for any important man in your life. A gorgeous chunky and tactile medallion to be customised with words of your choice and threaded onto an adjustable cotton cord or a sterling silver 20" belcher chain. Sterling silver medallion measures - mini tablet 25 x 18mm / maxi tablet 30 x 20mm Cord colours available - brown,black,grey or beige PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TEXT IS HAND STAMPED NOT MACHINE ENGRAVED AND IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNEVEN AND SLIGHTLY QUIRKY ADDING TO THE CHARM. product code: 168293 5 customer reviews Fri 12 Dec 2014 Necklace is lovely - just as expected . Thank u Tue 24 Jun 2014 This necklace is fantastic Sat 12 Apr 2014 pleased with the tablets Tue 02 Apr 2013 Beautiful piece...the hubby loves it! :) Thu 25 Oct 2012 Lovely, presented perfectly. Very impressed see all customer reviews hide some customer reviews read about our product rating system ratings guide trusted independent customer feedbackforum excellent bad good poor This product is dispatched to you by Chambers & Beau. All items are sent recorded delivery or special delivery if over £100. MAINLAND UK order now and receive this item on or before price Standard Delivery Friday 30 January £2.75$5.24€3.62$4.60 Two Day Delivery Wednesday 28 January £6.70$12.78€8.82$11.21 Express Next Day Tuesday 27 January £7.70$14.69€10.13$12.89 Express Next Day 1pm Tuesday 27 January £9.70$18.50€12.77$16.24 NON-MAINLAND UK estimated delivery price Highlands & Islands of Scotland 2-5 daysfrom dispatch £2.75$5.24€3.62$4.60 Northern Ireland 2-5 daysfrom dispatch £2.75$5.24€3.62$4.60 Other UK Islands 2-5 daysfrom dispatch £4.95$9.44€6.51$8.28 INTERNATIONAL DELIVERY estimated delivery price Western Europe 2-5 daysfrom dispatch £11.50$21.94€15.14$19.25 Rest of Europe 5-10 daysfrom dispatch £11.50$21.94€15.14$19.25 USA & Canada 5-10 daysfrom dispatch £18.50$35.29€24.35$30.97 Far East & Australasia 5-10 daysfrom dispatch £19.50$37.20€25.67$32.64 Rest of the world 5-14 daysfrom dispatch £19.50$37.20€25.67$32.64 You have 28 days, from receipt of cancellable goods, to notify the seller if you wish to cancel your order or exchange an item. Please note: goods that are personalised, bespoke or made-to-order to your specific requirements, perishable products and personal items sold with a hygiene seal (cosmetics, underwear) in instances where the seal is broken are non-refundable, unless faulty. Read more about our returns policy.Should you choose to return or exchange your order you will need to deliver the item(s) to the UK, where this seller is based. Chambers & Beau's return policy


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Tags indie, breakup, sad
Genres indie, folk, indie rock, singer-songwriter, alternative (beta) (flag as incorrect)
Published June 17, 2011
Everyone seems to be breaking up lately. maybe it's a summer thing.
I think it's working.......
This is an awesome awesome mix.
Warning sing is just devastating
I am hurting really bad, heartbroken and all. Thank you for this.
Love it!
This is just what I needed; you're a genius
wow you gta breakup list too. Time to compare notes & update.
I don't have a niche by ticklememomo11
Alright, maybe a slight one.
indie, electronic, folk, monkah
I heard you like what I like by ticklememomo11
For a friend.
indie, reddit
Dat Bassline by ticklememomo11
It's been far too long.
bass, indie, electronic, monkah
Before the hipsters were born by ticklememomo11
This stuff never gets old.
indie, 80s, new wave


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Winter Cleaning. Tips and Tricks for Easy Home Maintenance
Posted Feb 25th 2014 | By:
0 Comments
Winter is the perfect time of the year to give your home a good, thorough cleaning. Since you probably spend most of your leisure time indoors due to the cold weather outside, you can finally take care of some things that have been neglected up until now.
Even if you clean your home every week, there will still be areas that will require more attention and care.
Let's see how we can make our home clean, healthy and organized with the following tips and tricks. General Guidelines To optimize and facilitate the whole cleaning process, tackle one room at a time. Prioritize your chores by preparing a cleaning to-do list. List all rooms you need to clean and include specific goals to keep you motivated.
Turn on some nice music to make time flies faster.
Do not hesitate to ask for help whether that will be your children or wife/husband, ask them to join so that you can clean faster. Windows Winter is especially harsh on windows due to all the moisture that accumulates on them. Clean your windows using a mixture of white vinegar and warm water.
Don't forget to tackle the frames and any woodwork.
If you have carpets, make sure to vacuum them thoroughly and hang them outside to air out for a bit. Vacuum the floors and sweep them with the mop. Winter is also a suitable time to wax wooden floors.
Kitchen Area
Empty the fridge and remove all shelves and crispers. Wipe the interior from top to bottom using multi-surface cleanser or home-made cleaning solutions (baking soda and warm water will do wonders for cleaning kitchen appliances).
Pick a day when you won't use the over and spray the inside with an oven cleaning spray.
Leave the detergent to sip for a few hours this way you will clean debris and dirt much
Besides cleaning floors and surfaces, you will also need to declutter all rooms. Put everything in its rightful place books on shelves, clothes in the closet, don't leave anything unattended. Decide if you want to throw stuff you won't need broken toys, torn clothes, old shoes, etc.
Winter cleaning can be easy, simple and enjoyable as long as you have a system and a trusted assistant willing to share the chores with you.
In case you don't have the availability or time to clean on your own, consider contacting a local cleaning provider for maintaining your home. Most after builders cleaning services in London offer cleaning maids and provide discounts in case you want to use their help on a regular basis.


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Tue, Sep 1, 09 at 13:38
When moving into a previously-occupied home, when is the better time to have the carpets cleaned - after the sellers move out and the home is completely empty, or after the movers have moved in the buyer's furniture (and possibly soiled the carpet in the process)? Would it be best to clean the carpets when empty, let dry completely, then put down plastic runners in the high traffic areas before the move-in begins? Thanks for your suggestions. |
Follow-Up Postings:
Definitely have the carpet cleaned before you move in, when it's empty. Like what you said, you can use runners on high-traffic areas. |
- Posted by bozogardener (My Page) on Tue, Sep 1, 09 at 14:08
Our movers provided their own runners for when they moved the furniture in. It was very appreciated since we cleaned the carpets before we moved in. |
- Posted by loves2read (My Page) on Sat, Sep 5, 09 at 0:19
totally agree that before you move in is best time for cleaning carpets and for exterminator's visit and for chimney cleaning if not done by sellers and really for any painting that you want to have done and can afford to |
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text:
NBA Feet: Around The League – 11/05 – 11/06 by Patrick Johnson 3 Comments
December 27, 2012 BY Brendan Dunne / 0
Another Nike LeBron X colorway has just arrived for the smaller sized folks out there. That would be the Nike LeBron X in black and photo blue pictured here. Of course there haven't been too many colorways to date that have been exclusive to the GS side of things, so perhaps this version will hit for the adults yet. If so, do you see yourself grabbing a pair? Take a look at the full photos after the jump to help you make up your mind and stay tuned for more on the Nike LeBron X in black/metallic silver/photo blue/white.
Nike LeBron X GS
Black/Metallic Silver-Photo Blue-White
Photos: LTD Online
Filed under: Basketball LeBron
NBA Feet: Around The League – 11/05 – 11/06 by Patrick Johnson 3 Comments
Nike LeBron X "Shattered Prism" Customs by ROM by Brendan Dunne 3 Comments
Nike LeBron 10 "Cork" – Gold Package on eBay by John Kim 16 Comments


text:
Lucy Payne talks the title fight with Tiffany Van Soest, fighting on AXS TV and more with our first Lion Fight 10 pre-fight interview. Interviewed by Chinggay Andrada. watch video >>
Tiffany Van Soest - Lion Fight 10 Post Fight Interview (Featherweight Title Champion) watch video >>
Lion Fight 10 - (Tiffany van Soest Interview) watch video >>
Tiffany Van Soest vs Lucy Payne (2/2) - Lion Fight 15 watch video >>
Tiffany Van Soest vs Lucy Payne (1/2) - Lion Fight 15 watch video >>
Lion Fight made it's Was Coast debut in a big way with an explosive night of Muay Thai. Here are the highlights from Lion Fight 15 featuring Pedro Gonzalez, Cosmo Alexandre, Kevin Ross, and Tiffany V watch video >>
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! http://www.twitter.com/mmainterviews http://www.twitter.com/SpencerLazara & CHECK OUT MORE VIDEOS at http://www.mmainterviews.tvGet $10 off preworkout supplem watch video >>
Lion Fight 16 is AXS TV Fights' 250th Fight and American Muay Thai superstar Tiffany Van Soest previewed he Co-Main Event fight on "Inside MMA."Check out Lion Fight 16 July 4th on AXS TV! watch video >>
Lion Fight 16 fighter Tiffany van Soest discusses her upcoming bout against Sindy Huyer. watch video >>


text:
- Scientists Report Severe Retreat of Arctic Ice
The cap of floating sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, which retreats under summer's warmth, this year shrank more than one million square miles — [...]
- San Francisco to go dark, save energy
The Golden Gate Bridge, City Hall, Alcatraz and other parts of the city will go almost completely dark for an hour next month as part [...]
- New Zealand announces major scheme to tackle climate change
The New Zealand government said Thursday it would gradually introduce emissions trading from next year to tackle climate change.
Under the scheme, major industries will be [...] - SEC Pressed to Require Climate-Risk Disclosures
One of the industries considered most vulnerable to climate change is the insurance industry, with shifting weather patterns threatening property in the nation's most hurricane-prone [...]
- Ban Ki-moon urges countries on global warming
The science is clear and the time short, but the political will is lacking to confront global warming, the U.N. secretary-general said Tuesday.
Ban Ki-moon said [...] - Climate Change Brings Risk of More Extinctions
BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Md. — What has gone missing here is almost as spectacular as the 8,000 acres of swampy wilderness that remain. And [...]
- Climate change tops future humanitarian challenges: Annan
Former UN chief Kofi Annan warned Monday that climate change was likely to be the most urgent humanitarian challenge in the future, highlighting some one [...]
- Tax proposed for gas-guzzling cars in UK
Britain's Treasury chief plans to introduce a "purchase tax" of up to $4,000 on the most polluting vehicles, The Sunday Times reported.
Alistair Darling also plans [...] - Northwest Passage ice shrinks to new low
Arctic ice coverage has receded this week to record lows, the European Space Agency said, raising the prospect of greater maritime traffic through a long-sought [...]
- Panel Faults Emphasis of U.S. Climate Program
An effort by the Bush administration to improve federal climate research has answered some questions but lacks a focus on impacts of changing conditions and [...]


text:
By Joris Evers
July 6, 2005
Computer code that could be used to attack systems with older versions
of Firefox has been released on the Internet, security experts have
The exploit code takes advantage of a security vulnerability in
Firefox 1.0.1 and earlier versions of the open-source Web browser, the
French Security Incident Response Team, or FrSIRT, said in an advisory
posted Wednesday.
The bug exists because of an error in the way the older versions of
Firefox handle GIF images. An attacker could gain control of a PC by
luring the user to a Web page or sending an e-mail containing a
specially crafted image, according to FrSIRT, which rates the issue
Only Firefox 1.0.1 and earlier are vulnerable. The image-parsing
problem was fixed in Firefox 1.0.2, which was released in March. Since
then, two more Firefox updates have been released, mostly to address
security issues. The most recent version is Firefox 1.0.4, which was
released in May.
Because the security bug was quashed more than three months ago, the
exploit release is less of a concern, said Michael Sutton, a lab
director at security company iDefense. "Given the length of time
during which patches have been available, I would consider the release
of this exploit to be a credible threat, but not critical," he said.
A representative for the Mozilla Foundation, the maker of Firefox,
said most of the browser's users have upgraded to version 1.0.4.
Mozilla encourages people to check for updates regularly and update
their browser when a new version is available, the representative
Previous Next Since the debut of Firefox 1.0 in November, its usage
has grown at a rapid pace. Security has been a main selling point for
Firefox over Microsoft's rival Internet Explorer. The number of
downloads of the software is close to passing the 70 million mark,
according to the download counter Spread Firefox Web site. That total
represents downloads of all versions, so it doesn't necessarily
represent individual users.
Firefox has demonstrated that the mature Web browser market, dominated
by Internet Explorer, can be shaken up. IE has begun to see its market
share dip slightly--a first in a number of years. Firefox U.S. usage
share reached nearly 7 percent at the end of April, according to
tracking company WebSideStory.
Copyright =A91995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
Attend the Black Hat Briefings and
Training, Las Vegas July 23-28 -
2,000+ international security experts,
10 tracks, no vendor pitches.


text:
I have a question -- we purchased a home in 2006 in Texas. We were just assessed a tap fee that was never disclosed. Although this was a new home, we also did not build the home, we bought it from the people who built the home. They knew of this charge based on the documents we have been given, however, this fee was never disclosed to us. The water and meter were here when we moved in. The Water district did not set the fee until May of 2008 as this was a new community. Until that time no charges were made for water or the tap fee. The original invoice went to the sellers -- and we spent weeks tracking down the water company as we did not want to receive a water bill in the thousands. What I would like to know is shouldn't this fee be the resposibility of the sellers of the property? Or, at the very least, shouldn't this have been disclosed to us? Is this something we can have the title company look into? Thank you for any feedback. |
Follow-Up Postings:
Boy, that's a bummer. So, you have been getting free water for over two years? Honestly, yes, I think you should have been told that you would be responsible for the hook-up fee since they did not know at sales what it would be. But I think you have left out some important information when you presented it here. You had to have had a clue in that period of time that you owed somebody money for two year's worth of water, since you weren't getting any bills. Did you already know they would be deferred until a tap fee was established? Do you expect the previous owners to pay your two year water bill, or just want reimbursement for the tap fee? In my area, that is a substantial amount, btw. Didn't you have any suspicions up to this point and be curious enough to check it out at any point in the last two years? Did you ever even call the water department at all, to put the account in your name? |
- Posted by live_wire_oak (My Page) on Sun, Oct 12, 08 at 10:31
Weren't you curious as to why you weren't getting billed for water? A fee that is non existant at the time of the sale and didn't exist until 2 years after the sale would be impossible to "disclose". You didn't do due diligence. In any are of the country, but especially where water is a scarce and an expensive commodity, it is up to the buyer to discover the $$ amount that it will cost them for their chosen location. The buyer merely has to disclose the source of that water, such as well, community well, or city. It's up to the buyer to discover any fees associated with the supply. It would be nice for the seller to have all of the utility or community fees in a info packet for any prospective buyers, but it's not mandatory information to "disclose". |
Under Texas law, you are responsible for only the last six months if water was covered by the utilties commission - however, water was moved to the environmental commission for some reason. Anything prior to that which was not billed to you would have been the utility's problem - as it is, I don't know if they retained the rule about backbilling being limited to the last six months or not. |
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text:
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Auxiliary (CMZA) was formed in 1969 as a non-profit organization to give aid in carrying out the Zoo's objectives. It is an active and founding member of the Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents (AZAD).
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Auxiliary Objectives
- To support the Zoo in providing a major zoological park for residents and visitors of the Pikes Peak region.
- To assist the Zoo in providing recreational, educational, conservation and scientific facilities in the fields of natural history, zoology and related subjects.
- To aid the Zoo's education program by providing docent guide service for school groups and related organizations, and providing liaison with other educational institutions.
- To work with the Zoo staff toward increased utilization of the zoological park and its facilities.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Auxiliary Activities
- Provide classroom "Safari" instruction and Zoo tours based on approved curriculum to students in the Pikes Peak region from grades 2 and up. See details on Docent lead tours
- Provide puppet and slide shows on zoos and animals for grades preschool through 2.
- Provide interpretive education using biofacts and talks to Zoo visitors.
- Handle specified Zoo animals to provide visitors up-close opportunities to see animals, reptiles, amphibians and birds.
- Provide a Speakers Bureau to explain Zoo and animal activities to interested groups in the community.
- Aid the Zoo staff in providing animal enrichment activities for Zoo animals.
Sound appealing? Become a Zoo docent today!
PLEASE NOTE: Our class for 2015 is now full. If you would like to be added to our wait list, please complete the application and send it to us as an attachment or print it and send it by mail. We will be happy to call you if a space becomes available. We will also keep it on file and contact you when we begin to put our 2016 class together next summer. Thank you for your interest and we'll see you at the Zoo!!


text:
Wilderness Tripping - BWCA & Beyond | New Topic | Printer Friendly Version |
That sucks!
Posted by: RobW on May-13-11 2:32 PM (EST)
Sorry to hear you're still snowed in. We had a fairly late ice out here in Southern Ontario too, but managed to get our first trip of the year in from April 28 - May 2nd. The cabin fever leading up that trip just about killed me. If you want some new pictures to daydream over, here are some from the other week:
Bug Shelters | Dry Bags | Boat Loader | Kayak Seats | Kong Cable |
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We've just written a blog about the UK's nasty, disingenuous and hypocritical patent box regime, and how recent moves announced in a joint UK-agreement to reform it have successfully been spun as a "watering down" of the rules under pressure from Germany.
The blog points out that the joint UK-German announcement, which is quite short, is cryptic. It explicitly states that "IP regimes" (which is what patent boxes are) are out: well and good.
But, as we asked, will some sort of equivalent to or variant of the Patent Box be brought back in through the back door? Sources have alerted us that there seems to be some skulduggery involved here.
Take a look at this section of the joint statement. If you're not a corporate tax specialist you don't need to look too closely: to skim-read it is to see that it's as clear as mud.
"Uplift of Qualifying Expenditure – where related party outsourcing or acquisition costs are incurred, which do not constitute qualifying expenditure, companies will be able to obtain a maximum 30% uplift of their qualifying expenditure (subject to a cap based on actual expenditure) included within the formula; the 30% uplift refers to the overall expenses for both, outsourcing and acquisition costs;"
There is no further explanation. The "30% uplift" part seems to mean that if, for example, you have an expenditure cost of £1 million, you can set £1.3 million against tax. But now what is "qualifying expenditure," and how is that defined? What is "the formula?"
What is this all about, really? And why would they not spell these things out in the joint statement, or an accompanying explainer? Are they hiding something?
This potentially could be a case of continued special treatment for patent income, by another mechanism. We just don't know yet how it would work or how severe it is, though we've been informed (by someone who should know) that we ought to be quite concerned.
Our German colleagues are very unhappy about all of this. They have just published an open letter to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, expressing serious concerns about the latest announcement (a shaky web translation of the TJN-Germany letter is available here, it describes the potential for Germany to be "showering" unnecessary tax subsidies on the world's multinational corporations.)
Among other things, they note that the basic principle of the patent box is being preserved: that profits from the use of patents are going to be taxed at a lower rate, and the size and amount of qualifying profits may be unlimited:
"This is not suport for R&D, but the state showering tax credits without need over profitable businesses."
(Read more about these arguments here.)
They see in here the potential for Germany's centre-right government, which has had some success in persuading the world's media think that it's been opposing the patent box regime, to sneakily join in the game.
Germany's Spiegel magazine in September published an article (web translation here) saying Germany was wanting to introduce a special tax regime for intellectual property, at a tax cost of some three billion Euros.
From a UK perspective, it's unclear whether this joint UK-German statement is an improvement or a further step in the race to the bottom. From a German perspective, it seems unequivocally damaging.
It could potentially be so damaging that it will drive a stake through a vital organ of the OECD's entire BEPS flagship policy to reform international tax.
This short one-minute video, from the Treasure Islands website, was created in 2011. The offending Apple Itunes mail box address has since been moved, but we think the video still gives a good indication of just how artificial the whole business is.
(The embed code isn't working today for some reason; click on the link to see it.)
Go, as they say in the U.S., figure. (Full disclosure: yes, it was filmed on an, er, Apple Iphone)
There's lots more to say about this. First, recent EU efforts to tackle certain tax deals from the likes of Apple and Fiat are not going to significantly crack down on the problem. This needs much bigger international action.
Second, it is incorrect to say, as many have done, that this concerns 'perfectly legal' behaviour. It does not, as the TJN blog explains clearly.
Third, in my view there hasn't been nearly enough attention paid to PWC, the Big Four accountancy firm at the centre of these revelations. The same TJN blog notes, via Prem Sikka, some recent testimony in front of the UK Public Accounts Committee:
"The committee received evidence from a former senior PwC employee stating that within the firm the policy was that it would sell a tax avoidance scheme which had only a 25% chance of withstanding a legal challenge. As the committee chairperson put it "you are offering schemes to your clients – knowingly marketing these schemes – where you have judged there is a 75% risk of it then being deemed unlawful".
Fourth, it's interesting to note that the Luxembourg Prime Minister who oversaw and defended all these nasty schemes for many years – along with a lot of the still more unpleasant secrecy business – was none other than Jean-Claude Juncker, who has just started a new job as . . . President of the European Commission. He has promised not to meddled to defend Luxembourg's interests, but couldn't help adding:
"I have some ideas on the topic but I'll keep my counsel."
Does that sound like someone who will resolutely not intervene on his country's behalf? Only time will tell. But we shouldn't forget these words of his, as reported:
"In this conference he admitted to often have lied in his career to prevent rumors spreading and said that monetary policy was too important to be discussed in public, but should instead be discussed in "dark secret rooms, behind closed doors". Juncker furthermore stated: "I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious […] I am for secret, dark debates".
Some are worried that Luxembourg would suffer from the blowback from this. I quite like the quote from this senior G20 official, via a Guardian story:
"Asked recently if such a crackdown risked damaging the economy of Luxembourg, one senior figure closely involved in the G20 reform programme said: "I don't care. It is like saying: 'If you fight drugs there will be no jobs in certain parts of Mexico.' "
Quite so. There are victims, and then there are victims.
The main Luxembourg Leaks site is here, and the Luxembourg database is here. Also see TJN's Financial Secrecy Index report on how Luxembourg became a tax haven.
Ten years ago Jeffrey Robinson published a book about tax havens called The Sink, where he quotes a U.S. Customs official as saying of Panama:
"The country is filled with dishonest lawyers, dishonest bankers, dishonest company formation agents and dishonest companies registered there by those dishonest lawyers so that they can deposit dirty money into their dishonest banks. The Free Trade Zone is the black hole through which Panama has become one of the filthiest money laundering sinks in the world."
That was then. I haven't seen any gigantic, earth-shaking clean-up in Panama since then. Such an event would have been accompanied by a lot of anguished howling from all those on the drugs-and-dirty-money gravy train.
Today, the private players are still calling Panama "a 100% Full-Fledged Tax Haven." I heard today that suitcases of cash are still going across the border into Panama, long after most other tax havens closed down this particular offshore delicacy. TJN's Financial Secrecy Index gives it a secrecy score of 73, which is pretty bad, though admittedly not the very worst.
Panama has been playing hardball with international initiatives to crack down on financial secrecy, and unlike almost every tax haven in the world, as far as we know, it has not said a word about the OECD's Common Reporting Standards, the global flagship project to boost financial transparency. And here's a fuller laundry list of stuff, if you want more. A private adviser tells TJN:
"Panama remains a big hole, the biggest hole, and a really serious problem. Most banks involved in recent money laundering scandals have subsidiaries there."
All this is obviously of concern to all European countries, not least because of the security and criminal risks that come from tax havens facilitating the drugs trade.
Now, via Fox News Latino:
"Colombia's government on Wednesday declared Panama to be a tax haven after it failed to meet a deadline for signing a fiscal information exchange agreement."
This means a tax on money transfers to Panama will be raised from 10 to 33 percent and Colombians will no longer be able to deduct purchases made in Panama on their income tax returns. Standard tax-haven blacklist stuff.
Panama, though, is outraged – outraged! The foreign ministry says Panama has
"a competitive and sound tax system, and therefore the national government categorically rejects any tax-haven designation."
And Panama is even threatening Colombia with retaliation. The chutzpah!
To summarise. Panama refuses to sign a transparency agreement with Colombia, presumably one of the greatest sources of its dirty-money pile and whose drugs centre of Medellín lies just 200 km from its southeastern border. Its says it will refuse to provide transparency because:
"the information-sharing agreement it has been asked to sign would be detrimental to the country's position as an international corporate and financial center."
And Panama still wants us to believe its denials about it being a tax haven. Even Switzerland has stopped being so blatantly obvious about the role that secrecy plays in its industry. (Theatre of probity, anyone?)
The Economist observes, sardonically:
"In one of the most remembered scenes of the film Casablanca, police chief Louis Renault orders the close of Rick's Cafe when he is "shocked, shocked" to learn that there was gambling going on in the establishment. Seconds later a waiter presents Renault with his winnings from roulette.
Panama was similarly shocked when Colombia last week included the neighbouring country on its list of tax havens, after the Central American nation failed to meet a deadline to sign a bilateral tax information exchange agreement."
Well put.
It is time for the G20, the OECD and others to come out and use words such as 'blacklist' and 'sanctions' to deal with Panama. And then start to apply the pressure.
I'd say it's time to slap this criminal financial jurisdiction with strong sanctions, until they are dragged, kicking and screaming into the civilised world and the modern age.
"Apple will be accused of prospering from illegal tax deals with the Irish government for more than two decades when Brussels this week unveils details of a probe that could leave the iPhone maker with a record fine of as much as several billions of euros."
European Commission preliminary findings from the probe into Apple's Irish tax affairs, where the FT reports it had a rate of less than two percent, reportedly show Apple benefiting from illicit state aid via backroom deals with Irish tax officials. The prospect of this emerged last June, and the fact the Commission is pursuing this avenue seriously is welcome news. It follows Senate hearings in the U.S. last year in which one expert, Dick Harvey, testified:
"Apple does not use tax gimmicks? I about fell off my chair when I read that."
But there's something that needs asking.
These gimmicks, like those of many other large multinationals, have been widely known about for many years. Why is the action only starting now? Pressure and publicity from TJN and its many allies, in combination with the global financial (and ensuing economic) crisis of recent years, have been major factors.
Note that the whole gamut of these shenanigans by Apple and others, whatever their legality, is engineering a continuous one-way reverse transfer of wealth out of European (and other) Treasuries, through what has been called "Risk Mining."
The case highlights the age-old problem that international tax rules are dysfunctional: arbitrary, opaque, and they leave wide room for interpretation and hence favourable rulings. The OECD, through its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project is leading the main effort to repair the rules, and the Tax Justice Network has reported that while the OECD's moves are potentially welcome in as far as they go, ultimately they may end up only being fragile patches, like applying sticking plaster to a mortally wounded patient.
The G20 has called for reforms to ensure that multinationals like Apple are taxed "where their activities take place", and it is not clear that the BEPS project takes us very far down this road. This potentiall implies operating with some very new principles of international tax, to treat multinationals according to economic and business reality, as unitary entities, and tax them in this way.
Indeed, the EU Commission has worked for 10 years to design a unitary tax framework, known as the the CCCTB (Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base) but this proposal is being blocked in the EU Council of Ministers by countries such as Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, whose financial sectors have made a living out of picking the pockets of other EU countries. And that is not to mention the pockets of developing countries, which are especially vulnerable to corporate tax abuse, not least because the corporate income tax tends to be more important for them than for richer countries.
It was heartening to see the Netherlands at least making a show of doing something about its abusive role here, but there's a long way to go. Ireland, so far, seems to have focused its attention instead on pretending it's not a tax haven. (And if you are still in doubt about Ireland's role in it all, then take a look at this article, entitled If Ireland is not a tax haven, what is it? A bagel?)
The UK is also being very hypocritical: not only have successive UK governments opposed the CCCTB, but the present government is stubbornly defending appalling tax breaks to multinationals enacted this year, especially the patent box which gives subsidies estimated at $1b pr year mainly to pharmaceutical companies. For more on that, read David Quentin's recent article The UK's "Patent Box" – a really nasty, disingenuous and hypocritical piece of tax law.
This was adapted from the Tax Justice Network blog.
]]>Reading between the lines, this report constitutes a major attack on tax havens. "Spillovers" in international tax are all about tax haven activity, particularly when those spillovers are deliberately crafted. It also savages a significant part of the prevailing OECD tax consensus that has dominated international tax for the last century or so.
This is a really important document, and though it focuses on developing countries it has important implications for European countries as they consider the urgent matters of tax reform.
We are delighted to see the IMF convincingly takes the side of developing countries: not only taking sides in big current political fights (such as India vs. Vodafone)
but peppering the report with suggestions how developing countries can fight against all the erosion.
This makes a really refreshing change from the standard (often well-justified) stories about IMF programmes laying waste to developing countries.
The IMF says the aim of this exercise – which, by the way, is clearly written and should be palatable to interested non-experts – is to complement the OECD's BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) project to help countries protect themselves from tax abuses, by looking at the spillovers. However, buried deep in the text are some devastating criticisms of BEPS too – notably that it doesn't properly address crucial issues of unfairness towards developing countries. The report notes:
"New results reported here confirm that spillover effects on corporate tax bases and rates are significant and sizable. . . . Spillovers are especially marked and important for developing countries. . . . The amounts at stake in a single tax planning case now quite routinely run into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars."
And, in terms of the tax base (that is, which part of cross-border income that developing countries get to tax), there's some startling quantification:
"The spillover base effect is largest for developing countries. Compared to OECD countries, the base spillovers from others' tax rates are two to three times larger, and statistically more significant. . . . The apparent revenue loss from spillovers. . . is also largest for developing countries."
Our emphasis added. Wow. And we'd agree with the next bit, of course:
"The institutional framework for addressing international tax spillovers is weak. As the strength and pervasiveness of tax spillovers become increasingly apparent, the case for an inclusive and less piecemeal approach to international tax cooperation grows."
That may be a gentle dig at the OECD, for not being ambitious enough. And there's plenty more: the IMF notes.
"[a] concern sometimes expressed that the system allocates too little tax base to developing countries"
In other words, considering all the different bits and pieces of income that flow from a cross-border investment from a rich country to a poor one, most of them get taxed by the rich country, leaving relatively little on the table for the poor country. What a surprise. And it notes the harmful effects of tax 'competition':
"The pervasiveness of the tax incentives that the IMF and others have long stressed as significantly undermining revenue in developing countries may to a large extent be a spillover reaction to policies pursued in other countries: a clear instance of tax competition."
Tax competition is the widely used term; but Tax Wars is the less economically illiterate term. The IMF also notes that – unlike the global trade system – the tax system is an uncoordinated and pretty disastrous hodge-podge. It contains an interesting statistical nugget: "the increased importance of intra-firm transactions (about 42 percent of the value of U.S. goods trade in 2012″ (consistent with the idea that about half of world trade happens inside multinational corporations)
The IMF report takes a swing or two at the OECD's BEPS process. For instance, in a section on tax treaties which allocate taxing rights among countries, the IMF notes that not only are the OECD models (that are generally the basis for these treaties) skewed in favour of richer countries, as we and other have often remarked, but it also adds:
"At issue here are deeper notions as to the 'fair' international allocation of tax revenue and powers across countries (which current initiatives do not address)."
That is a small sentence buried in the text, but it's devastating. And the IMF notes that defending the OECD consensus may even end up not serving the self-interest of OECD countries:
"Arrangements that seem to contradict broad perceptions of fairness, even if those are imperfectly articulated, may increasingly give rise to unilateral domestic measures to change them—with a consequent risk of uncoordinated defensive measures even further undermining the coherence of the international tax system."
Treaty reform, it seems is essential, as it notes in its key messages for developing countries:
The "sign treaties only with considerable caution" reminds us of a recent fiery intervention by Lee Sheppard, in which she urges developing counties not to sign these kinds of tax treaties.
Now here's something else that's fascinating. The IMF appears to be taking India's side in its recent tax tussle with Vodafone. Get a load of this:
"The tax treatment of gains on indirect transfers of interests in assets is a controversial issue—and one of particular importance to many developing countries."
This is where a multinational has an asset in a developing country, and that asset rises in value. It wants to sell the asset – but if it just sells it straight, it may have to pay capital gains tax on those gains. So instead the multinational sets up a shell company in a tax haven, to own the asset. This time it merely sells the shell company (which owns the asset). The sale is recorded in the tax haven, which doesn't tax capital gains. Bingo! Wealth is transferred from a poor country to wealthy shareholders of the multinational.
This is exactly the issue in the India-Vodafone fight – which the IMF explicitly mentions, along with billion-dollar cases in Mauritania and Mozambique (p70). And the IMF's conclusion on this?
"The laws of many developing countries need strengthening if they are to tax gains on such indirect transfers."
Go get 'em!
On the crucial issue of the OECD's Arm's Length Method (otherwise known as the Arm's Length Principle, or ALP), which we and many others have criticised extensively, the IMF recognises that it is badly broken though it does not fully endorse a move towards the main alternative, unitary taxation with formula apportionment (FA). Such an approach would tackle many of the existing problems, it argues, but would introduce new difficulties – and would not necessarily shift tax bases towards developing countries. Yet it adds:
"this approach, rather than one based on ALP, is so common at subnational level—indeed there seems to be no subnational CIT that does not use some form of FA—suggests that it has at least some merit in taxing firms operating across highly integrated economies."
(That bit in bold is our emphasis, because we (or at least today's TJN blogger) didn't know that.)
Whether or not developing countries would benefit from application of formula approaches internationally, the IMF notes that it depends on which kind of formula were applied:
The IMF urges 'closer study' of partial approaches based on formula apportionment, however, including hybrid approaches and 'profit split' methods which involve allocating taxable income between countries on a formula basis, but at a transaction level rather than at the level of the multinational group.
To finish, here's another little bomblet:
"[it has been argued that] low tax and conduit countries can improve the efficiency with which capital is allocated. These considerations generate heated dispute, but remain essentially uninformed by empirical knowledge."
It is almost funny how the IMF savages some of the tax havens' central arguments in their self-defence (see more here). The 2006 paper they cite in this respect (Desai, Foley and Hines) and earlier iteration by Hines in particular have become totemic for tax havens in their defence. "Uninformed by empirical knowledge" is perhaps as damning a statement as you will get from the scrupulously polite IMF.
There is plenty more in this report, but these are probably the main points, tax justice-wise.
To summarise: the IMF seems to be carving out new space in this arena with more time for the interests of developing countries, in some contrast to the OECD – which is, after all, a club of rich countries, and experience shows tends ultimately to bat for the interests of its member states.
A welcome addition to the literature.
Endnote: this article is cross-posted (in adapted form) with the Tax Justice Network and Financial Transparency Coalition blogs.
]]>Cross-posted with the Tax Justice Blog.
The Swiss Federal Council on Wednesday issued a statement making it all too clear what it thinks "the new global standard for the automatic exchange of information in tax matters" should look like. This concerns the OECD's ongoing project to create a new framework for international financial transparency, which we've written about before: while we found shortcomings, we welcomed the project overall. The OECD is expected to finalise its global standard in June.
The Swiss position is a direct threat to global moves on transparency. A private tax adviser tells TJN:
"My view is that they are trying to wriggle out of it."
The Swiss statement is yet more evidence of what has been called a "circle the wagons" strategy: when under pressure from a world that's moving forward, give ground only inch by inch, if at all; hold on to secrecy where possible – and particularly exploit the weaknesses of weaker and more vulnerable countries.
Meanwhile, trumpet to domestic and international media and anyone who will believe them how, ahem, clean, well-regulated and transparent the historic haven for thieves and abusers has suddenly become!
The Swiss statement says, for instance:
Our emphasis added (thanks to Koen Roovers for bringing this up). The private adviser notes:
"They are trying to choose who to exchange with, and under what conditions. The OECD system was not set up so that countries can add whatever riders they like onto it. They [the Swiss] want to turn this to their advantage, maybe to even move backwards from where they are now."
As we have noted, multilateral negotiations with intransigents like Switzerland are always more fruitful, but Switzerland wants to make sure it has maximum leverage over vulnerable developing countries.
The Swiss statement goes further. It insists that:
Mark Herkenrath of Alliance Sud in Switzerland adds:
"The Swiss government will stick to a bilateral approach to AIE and engage in "cherry picking". That is, it will try to exclude developing countries from AIE for as long as possible – despite opposition by various NGOs and Left-wing members of parliament and a lively debate within the federal administration (I do not think the Swiss development agency SDC is in favor of excluding developing countries from AIE).
The problem is that the Swiss government is not expecting any external resistance to this strategy of cherry picking. Neither the OECD nor the G20 have made a clear statement in favor of a multilateral approach to AIE. Nor have they asked for the inclusion of developing countries in such a multilateral approach. Nor have LIC/LDC governments made it clear that they wish to be included."
Koen Roovers of the Financial Transparency Coalition summarises:
"This is the moment where Switzerland, likely with the silent support of other rich nations, show what all this is really about: countries with which there are close economic and political ties will cooperate to not hurt each other economically (or in any case less), but that less fortunate populations of the world won't benefit from this international drive against large-scale tax evasion.
Meanwhile, they have created great spin and to some extent, were rehabilitated by mainstream media stating that 'Switzerland (& Singapore) joining the ministerial agreement meant the end of banking secrecy'.
He is quite right: the credulous nature of so many media reports about Switzerland is breathtaking. He adds:
"In April, the Swiss development cooperation agency published a briefing calling for "systemic inclusion of the issue developing countries in Switzerland's internal strategy work in the field of automatic exchange of information and effective implementation of the multilateral OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters."
It seems that voice hasn't been taken on board when the federal government communicated its position yesterday."
Indeed. Switzerland isn't the only country to lack such joined-up thinking, of course.
Endnote: Switzerland currently holds the top position in our Financial Secrecy Index.
]]>If there's one story you read today make it this one, from Politico Magazine. It's triggered by the crisis in Ukraine, but it's been a long time coming.
The point of this short story is clear: Western leaders are waking up to the fact that Russia no longer fears or even respects them. Why? Well:
"Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money."
Quite so. More specifically,
"Putin's henchmen know this personally. Russia's rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London's West End to France's Cote d'Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.
. . .
They have seen firsthand how obsequious Western aristocrats and corporate tycoons suddenly turn when their billions come into play.
. . .
they know full well it is European bankers, businessmen and lawyers who do the dirty work for them placing the proceeds of corruption in hideouts from the Dutch Antilles to the British Virgin Islands."
Why, our very last blog, via Global Witness, was about the former Soviet Union and its dirty money parked in Britain and other shady hideouts. For an in-depth investigation of the British angle, if you haven't already read it, see this Vanity Fair article about London (whose author is, as it happens, today's TJN blogger). See also our TJN narrative reports on the British Virgin Islands, on the (former) Dutch Antilles and on the United Kingdom.
In theory, the Politico story notes, the hoards of Russian wealth in Europe makes Moscow vulnerable. Europe could stamp its foot firmly down in money-laundering investigations and cut them off from the oceans of corruptly obtained, or outright stolen, wealth. But no: Austria and Luxembourg, in alliance with Switzerland – and, yes, the United Kingdom – just keep sabotaging real progress. Anything like the U.S. Magnitsky Act would be just too much to stomach for those high-society, upstanding European criminal facilitators. And we don't want to upset our European offshore banking fraternity – especially with all that juicy, crooked Russian and ex-Soviet cash sloshing about.
Now, here is another article by the same author, Ben Judah, entitled How Britain Betrayed Ukraine:
"Chanting 'shame on you', more than 150 protestors crammed onto a cold London pavement. But they had not chosen either the Ukrainian embassy or the Houses of Parliament to demonstrate. They were protesting outside Number One Hyde Park. As they shouted, the Ukrainian protestors craned their heads upwards to the metallic balconies of this hulking icon of a new London. London buses, not Berkut troopers, hummed passed. Then began the singing for the dead.
To the British, Number One Hyde Park is a symbol of what David Cameron as prime minister and Boris Johnson as mayor envisage for London. This glinting billion-pound development was built to reel in foreign billionaires.
To the Ukrainian demonstrators below, Number One Hyde Park is a symbol of impunity."
That article is also worth reading in full. (As mentioned, for a more in-depth look at One Hyde Park and its astonishing roster of offshore-diving owners, click here.)
We have said on many occasions that hosting a corrupt, corrupting infrastructure to hoover up the world's dirty money is a national security issue, for all of us – whether in the victim countries (both Russia and the Ukraine in this case, from the perspective of their ordinary citizens) or in the perpetrators (European havens, the United States, and others).
But that's not all. Having wreaked all that harm overseas, Britain also faces the the problem that hosting an oversized financial centre, and hoovering up such gargantuan quantities of dirty money, can weaken one's own economy. From the perspective of ordinary people at least, secret offshore banking is a losing proposition – almost any way you look at it.
The Politico story ends with a wonderful quote:
"Europe is really run by an elite with the morality of the hedge fund: Make money at all costs and move it offshore."
Once again, read the whole story. It's short, and it's worth it.
Now, from the BBC:
"David Cameron and Barack Obama have agreed Russia must face "significant costs" if it does not change course after deploying troops in Ukraine."
Let's see just how far those 'costs' go. Will the UK government have the courage to stand up to the City of London on this one?
We won't be holding our breath.
Story hat tip: Adrienne Margolis, with thanks.
For an alternative image of Putin's attitude to the world, see here.
]]>This month a Swiss court fought back against efforts by the United States to tackle criminal activity and tax its wealthy citizens properly. As Worldwide Tax Daily reports:
"A Swiss court on January 6 held that Switzerland's Federal Tax Administration
(FTA) "unlawfully granted" a U.S. request for client data from private banking group Julius Baer, saying it did not meet the requirements for an administrative assistance request under the Switzerland-U.S. income tax treaty."
This is the latest episode in a long-running saga which began in 2008 when Swiss bankers were caught red-handed trying to flog tax evasion schemes to wealthy U.S. taxpayers – and the U.S. responded with a crackdown, As a result, the two countries began working on new information-sharing protocols between the two countries that have had the effect of penetrating Swiss banking secrecy – though only up to a point, and only for the U.S.
As this episode unfolds, it's worth remembering the long-running and fascinating case of Rudolf Elmer, former Chief Operating Officer with the Cayman affilate of the high-society Swiss bank Julius Baer. Elmer became fed up with what he was seeing and was involved in – and blew the whistle, first in 2005. He began by telling the Swiss tax authorities of tax evasion by Swiss taxpayers, and later provided information to Wikileaks and the world's media.
This is not just yet another story of human rights abuses by a secrecy jurisdiction against someone who would challenge the financial establishment. It touches on deep contradictions at the heart of the Swiss model of offshore finance. As tax expert (and TJN Senior Adviser) Professor Sol Picciotto says:
"His story casts fascinating light into the `offshore' system, constructed by lawyers and other professionals, which has been central to the emergence of transnational corporate capitalism."
The main legal charge against Elmer is that he breached Swiss banking secrecy laws which make it a criminal offence to reveal secrets obtained as an official of a bank. The main part of Elmer's defence is that the information (which he admits he revealed) came from an affiliate of Julius Baer in the Cayman Islands, which is separate from its Swiss parent and therefore not governed by Swiss law.
Switzerland's efforts to use Swiss laws to go after secrets revealed elsewhere contradicts the underpinnings of Switzerland's own liberal use of offshore principles to help corporate and other tax cheats. For example, the Swiss tax authorities claim that profits earned by foreign affiliates (such as in the Cayman Islands) cannot be taxed in Switzerland, under the widely used 'separate entity' principle. As Picciotto notes:
"That is the essence of Elmer's case, and is why the prosecutors are finding it hard to nail him."
Since the first whistleblowing in 2005 he and his family have been hounded by the Swiss judicial authorities – which we would argue are 'captured' by the financial services industry: a classic feature of the so-called Finance Curse that afflicts finance-dependent economies. Of Elmer's 28 encounters with the courts, 27 decisions have gone against him, and he has been imprisoned twice: once for 187 days, and once for 30 days, under an archaic Swiss law that allows lengthy spells of detention for police interrogation. In a twist reminiscent of the Soviet era, Elmer said Zurich prosecutors requested psychological evaluation of him in 2009 and in 2011 but he declined to cooperate – mainly to avoid the risk of ending up in a mental institution. Elmer's long-suffering wife, would you believe it, is still under investigation for assisting in the breaking of Swiss banking secrecy.
Elmer also argues that the prosecution's case is full of errors and inconsistencies. He told us, via separate emails, in the past a few days:
"At the moment the judges of the High Court of Zurich have to find me guilty. They have invested too much in the matter and cannot lose face! If I do not win – which is likely – I might have to take the entire case to the European Court of Human Rights.
. . .
We can demonstrate that the law has been bent and stretched, in order to serve the bank and not to lose face. This is about politics in the courtroom, and not about the law of a democratic society.
. . .
The case is an opportunity to show that a secrecy jurisdiction needs a morally corrupt judicial system in order to survive."
Elmer's whistleblowing is in its ninth year now, and they still haven't dropped it. A truly independent judiciary, it seems, would have stopped trying to flog this horse long ago. But they haven't: the campaign of intimidation continues, and there are still two cases pending against him.
As an aside, Switzerland's decision to probe another Swiss banker who has provided information to U.S. tax authorities may be, as a recent article noted, designed as:
"a message to bankers: Keep quiet or else."
It's not just the Swiss authorities that seem to be in the pocket of the offshore banks. Much of the Swiss media seems substantially 'captured' too. While the rest of the world has focused on the big story: the exposure of large-scale criminality by wealthy élites around the world, much of the Swiss media has responded instead by focusing on questioning or smearing the whistleblower, with accusations (among many other things) that he is a 'thief and a blackmailer".
But it is the big story that interests us. Here's the whistleblower support site Liberté Info, with some interesting questions posed in a recent letter to the Zurich High Court:
One can only wonder.
]]>We have long criticised the Netherlands for being a particularly important European tax haven helping multinational companies escape taxation. As, increasingly, have many others in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. We recently noted, too, how some developing countries have been kicking back at some of the abuses that have been perpetrated upon them with the help of the Netherlands and other tax havens.
We are now delighted to see a Financial Times interview Netherlands' deputy finance minister, Frans Weekers, making an admission that his government is uncomfortable with, and perhaps even ashamed of, the Netherlands' role in this pernicious trade. The Financial Times reports:
"A proposal by the Netherlands to renegotiate its tax treaties with 23 least-developed countries marks a turning point for a country that has until now deflected accusations that it is a key player in tax avoidance by multinational corporations.
The initiative, which comes as the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg is putting tax harmonisation issues high on the agenda, is the most concrete move yet by the Netherlands to address the criticisms. Tax justice advocates say the country's network of treaties with over 90 countries makes it a nexus for tax avoidance, allowing multinationals to reroute their profits through Dutch "letterbox companies" that do no real business in the Netherlands and exist largely for tax purposes."
This comes in the context and the spirit of today's G20 leaders' declaration, which includes a statement that:
"We call on member countries to examine how our own domestic laws contribute to BEPS [TJN: Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, OECD-speak for corporate tax dodging] and to ensure that international and our own tax rules do not allow or encourage multinational enterprises to reduce overall taxes paid by artificially shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions."
There are big lacunae to be addressed in the Dutch plans, however. The FT article describes an official Dutch report presented last week, which seeks to insert new anti-fraud provisions in their tax treaties with the 23 countries; will pass on information to tax authorities in developing countries; and will 'crack down' on letterbox companies. In a brief email to TJN, Lee Sheppard of Tax Analysts spoke of the Dutch
"promises to put more 'substance' in shell companies MNCs [Multinational Corporations] use. Turns out the "substance" ain't gonna be much."
Despite the disappointments in the detail (as is so often the case with shiny-looking tax justice-styled reforms, or world leaders' statements on these kinds of issues) the broad new public statement by the Dutch authorities is greatly welcome. The headline announcement is of great political significance, and an official admission that the tax justice movement, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, has had a point all along.
Today's blogger remembers a tax justice meeting in Amsterdam a few years ago when a top Dutch tax official gave a horribly patronising presentation, seeking to pooh-pooh a seminal report by our excellent Dutch NGO colleagues at SOMO. Times, they are a-changin'.
"Over the past 10 years the trend has been for the number of letterbox companies in the Netherlands to keep growing. I want to turn that trend around," Mr Weekers said. "I see the Netherlands being portrayed in a bad light. I don't want to be portrayed in a bad light.
The Dutch move stems from a government-commissioned report over the summer which, for the first time, agreed with tax-justice groups that developing countries miss out on substantial tax revenues because of their treaties with the Netherlands."
Here is a clear and public admission by the Netherlands government that this tax haven activity is causing great harm around the world. Or, to put it more succinctly, Tax Havens Cause Poverty.
Which, of course, immediately raises the next question: why stop at 23 countries? And why stop at these limited measures?
The logic points inexorably in one direction: the Netherlands should work towards rolling up this whole sordid industry and starting to compete on the basis of genuine business activity.
We urge other nations engaged in this shameful trade – such as Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom and others – to take note. We applaud the Netherlands for making what must have been -at least as far as it goes – a politically difficult move.
For those with a Financial Times subscription, there is a whole lot more in the FT story.
]]>The OECD has now published its long-awaited Action Plan on how to deal with corporate tax avoidance. Our response is below. It is broadly in line with a briefing yesterday as a curtain-raiser to this report.
Taxing multinational corporations: OECD chooses a path strewn with obstacles, headed in the wrong direction.
TJN's Response to the OECD's Action Plan on "Base Erosion and Profit Shifting"
July 19th, 2013
The OECD this morning published its long-awaited Action Plan to tackle corporate tax avoidance, which has seen the likes of Starbucks, Google, General Electric, Vodafone, Apple, Amazon and many others avoid billions in taxes.
Having carefully examined the Plan, which the OECD sent us under embargo on Wednesday, we have not changed our overall assessment we published on July 17th.
Professor Sol Picciotto, a Senior Adviser to the Tax Justice Network, said:
"The Action Plan contains some ambitious measures, which would produce some benefits if implemented. But its approach is like trying to plug holes in a sieve. The OECD has chosen a road that is strewn with obstacles, and leads in the wrong direction.
The OECD has missed this big opportunity to crack open the door to the big reform that the world's citizens need. It is still open to countries to adopt their own versions of worldwide taxation of multinationals, and for other organizations such as the United Nations to take a lead in developing an effective worldwide system."
Part 2: detailed commentary
The section below explores the OECD report in more detail. The OECD Action Plan: the positives.
The Tax Justice Network supports the OECD's efforts to strengthen international tax rules. The Action Plan is uneven, but in many respects ambitious. Some of its proposals would mean ending tax breaks that we have fought hard against, or introducing measures that we have supported. For example:
A path strewn with obstacles, and leading ultimately in the wrong direction
Despite these positive recommendations, which if implemented would provide some relief for citizens who bear the economic brunt of corporate tax avoidance, the OECD report is build on a fatally flawed approach.
The OECD experts could have taken this unique political opportunity – on the back of widespread citizen protests and pressures from cash-strapped governments to tackle corporate tax avoidance – to set the world on the road towards a new and far better system. It does not do this, but instead aims to strengthen existing rules.
The fundamental flaw in the current system is that it tries to tax transnational corporations (TNCs) as if they were loose collections of separate entities operating independently in each country. This is a system built on a fiction: the OECD knows as well as anyone that these firms are not bunches of separate entities – but unified firms under central direction.
A tax system fit for the 21st Century would recognise this economic reality, and seek to tax them using a unitary approach. Most tax experts, even some at the OECD, recognise the clear superiority of the unitary approach.
Their main objection has been that such an approach would require a degree of political cooperation which would not be politically feasible. However, a gradual transition towards such a system is both possible and necessary, as we explained in our previous Briefing, and in a more detailed earlier report.
In our view, on the contrary, the OECD's piecemeal approach is itself fraught with political obstacles, and is far less politically feasible as an approach, if we are serious about taxing TNCs effectively.
Recommendations are not binding; lobbyists will fight hard
Many of the measures that the OECD proposes to formulate would require states to reverse their international tax strategies, in the face of determined opposition not just from business, but also from the powerful firms of accountants and lawyers who find the current porous and complex system allows them to design highly lucrative tax avoidance schemes.
There will be many who will hope that while the OECD tries to flesh out these ideas into detailed provisions, the economic and political climate might change, fiscal pressures will abate, and press and public will lose interest in tax justice. We think this is unlikely.
More plausibly, cash-strapped governments will want to try to plug some of the holes in the leaky sieve of international taxation. Each will prioritise the measures that they think would least upset their own business lobbies. It will prove hard to persuade governments to repeal tax provisions that they believe attract business, even if these provisions harm other nations' economies.
A recipe for conflict
To the extent that the OECD does succeed in persuading governments to follow its new recommendations, it faces an enormous task of coordination. If each state prioritises measures that give it a bigger slice of the tax pie, that is a recipe for international tax conflicts between nations. Some issues raised by countries have been ruled to fall outside BEPs project. These would add to the numerous conflicts that already bedevil the system. For example, India and other developing countries remain concerned about the limits current tax rules place on source taxation of foreign-based service providers.
Internet-based services: a growing headache
Many governments would like a quick solution to the problem to taxing internet-based companies. Google, for instance, has avoided large amounts of tax by selling its advertising through its affiliate in the tax haven of Ireland. The OECD is unlikely to deliver a good solution to this. One of the fifteen points in the Action Plan concerns the Digital Economy: it expects to deliver only an analysis in a year's time, and even this deadline is unlikely to be met.
There are good reasons for this: the digital economy is not a distinct sector, but an important element in all business today, to a greater or lesser extent. Specific ways may be devised to tax some particular activities such as internet sales, but such partial and unilateral methods would produce imbalances and conflicts. In fact, the issues identified by the examples of Google, Apple and Amazon point to the more fundamental systemic flaws of the "separate entity" approach described above, which as we have pointed out the OECD does not propose to tackle head-on.
The OECD's powers of persuasion
In its very tough task of coordination, the OECD's only weapons are technical expertise and peer-pressure persuasion.
It proposes to use three methods.
First, at the most voluntaristic level, it will `revamp' its Forum on `harmful tax practices'. This essentially entails using peer-pressure to persuade countries to remove tax breaks and preferential regimes.
Second, it will draw up revisions mainly of the Commentary to the Model Tax Treaty, and if necessary also to the actual model treaty articles. The treaty articles are legally binding, and the Commentary has significant legal effect in interpreting those provisions. But this effect only works if and when states actually renegotiate their existing bilateral tax treaties. With the best will in the world, this would take years.
Third, the Plan also proposes to formulate a multilateral treaty, which it hopes would override existing treaties. This poses complex legal problems, and a special group of international legal experts will be recruited for this delicate task. But such a multilateral treaty also would only come into force once ratified by individual states, and only among the states which do ratify it. We recall that in 1988 the OECD drew up, in conjunction with the Council of Europe, a multilateral convention on tax co-operation. This took over twenty years to gain more than a handful of ratifications.
Transfer pricing: a deeper and deeper hole
In our view, the OECD has chosen a road that is not only strewn with obstacles, but leads in the wrong direction. This can be seen most clearly, perhaps, with respect to the transfer pricing problem. Here, the OECD has dug itself progressively into a deeper and deeper hole by doggedly pursuing the fiction of "separate entity" and the "arm's length method', described above.
The Action Plan suggests that there is the beginning of a realisation of the need for a new approach, in mentioning that `special measures, either within or beyond the arm's length principle, may be required'. This could potentially be construed as a possible tiny opening. However, it falls well short of the fundamental reorientation of approach that is required.
The OECD experts can be said to have done what could realistically be expected of them, given the political constraints. We had hoped for more, at least as regards transparency.
A road map to true reform
As we have pointed out, moving towards unitary taxation would not entail the sudden shock of a 'big bang.' It can be introduced gradually, building on existing practice. It involves three components, each of which can build on elements already existing in the current system.
A first, immediate step towards a unitary approach would be a transparency requirement, to require TNCs to submit to each relevant tax authority a Combined and Country-by-Country Report. This would outline the genuine economic substance of what the TNCs do and where they do it, and build on and enhance the already fast-emerging standard of Country by Country reporting.
This report should include global consolidated accounts, for which the OECD could and should develop a template. Action 13 of the Plan does seem to open up this possibility, and for this we must be grateful.
Second, tax authorities could use this information to apportion the global profits multinationals using appropriate allocation factors reflecting the economic substance of their activities around the world.
This can build on existing practice, in particular the so-called "profit-split" method already accepted by the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines, which aggregates the profits of related entities then apportions them according to so-called "allocation keys." This is a narrower, transaction-level version of apportioning profits by formula.
This approach, as currently used, aggregates profits only at the level of bilateral transacting entities – whereas in reality TNCs use more complex cross-linkages among multiple affiliates. It would not be such a great stretch to extend this practice from the level of transacting entities to the combined whole. Indeed, there is already considerable experience in some sectors in applying formulaic profit apportionment, especially in the finance sector, e.g. where a trading book is transferred between offices in different time-zones over 24 hours. Formula apportionment of such profits has been done for 20 years through Advance Price Agreement (APAs) with banks. If firms such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Starbucks really do want to pay a fair level of taxes wherever they do business, they too could enter into APAs and agree an appropriate apportionment.
The experience of using profit split and APAs could be combined with proper research to determine appropriate apportionment formulae. Some degree of divergence of formulae is likely, but this is acceptable.
Some argue that states would simply aim to weight the factor which produces the biggest 'tax grab' for themselves – and that therefore it will be impossible for there ever to be full global agreement on a formula: and so, they argue, the whole approach is politically impossible.
But this is quite wrong, for several reasons.
First, full convergence is not necessary. Differing formulae could certainly lead to some overlaps between different countries' tax systems – but as explained above this already happens under the current system, and the problem is likely to be less under unitary taxation.
Second, states won't just go for the biggest possible tax grab – because they need also to consider the effects that this would have on inward investment. This is likely to lead to a more balanced approach towards designing a formula, and to encourage convergence. A balance between production and consumption factors seems best. In the US, the trend among states using unitary taxation has been for convergence (towards emphasising the sales factor.)
Some also argue that firms could still reorganise themselves to minimise their taxes.
This is true but it would happen to a dramatically lesser degree, and in a very different way. It is far harder for a firm to relocate physical assets, workers and sales to other countries than it is for them to shift artificial profits under the current system. And if they chose to divest some operations to truly independent third parties, they would lose the profits of synergy and scale. It is hard to imagine a company like Apple being willing to transfer to a truly independent wholesaler in a low-tax country a significant slice of its profits. Relocation of real activities may well occur, but this is very different from the artificial shifting of profits to largely paper affiliates that happens under current rules.
States would remain free to choose their own marginal tax rates. So countries could compete to attract genuine investment rather than formation of paper entities aimed at subverting the taxes of other countries.
Unitary Tax would therefore eliminate harmful tax competition, while allowing countries to make genuine choices between attracting investment in production and generating revenues from corporate taxation. Such a system would of course not be perfect, but aligning tax rules more closely to the economic reality of integrated firms operating in liberalized world markets would make it simpler and more effective.
The third important element of reform would involve a procedure for resolving disagreements and conflicts between states. Such a system already exists in the OECD's Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) but it could be improved, as explained above, and extended to include negotiation of APAs.
Currently, the MAP is very secretive, and decisions often involving hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars are not published. The secrecy of both MAP processes and APAs greatly increases the power of frequent actors in these processes, i.e. the international tax and accounting firms – to the great detriment of the system as a whole.
Publication of both would be a great step towards a system which could both provide and more importantly be seen to deliver a fair international allocation of tax.
Not just the OECD.
A new approach to international tax in any case should not come from the OECD alone.
Although they propose to include at least seven of the eight non-OECD members of the G20, this still excludes the vast majority especially of developing countries. A more inclusive forum is needed. The United Nations Tax Committee should be the appropriate body – but it is hampered by lack of resources and bureaucratic problems. Nevertheless, if sympathetic governments could supply it with special funding, it could initiate a special project, following up its rewrite of the Transfer Pricing Manual which was published this year.
The IMF's Tax Policy Department could also play a role, given its expertise. Indeed, the IMF last month recognised that there is considerable interest in a unitary taxation approach:
"such schemes—including their impact on developing countries—deserve a more thorough and realistic assessment."
We hope that the OECD would also contribute to such a broader initiative to study and develop a new approach, even while it pursues its task of repairing the leaky sieve. The Tax Justice Network will continue its own work, and would be be happy to contribute to any initiatives aimed at restoring the integrity and efficacy of the international tax system.
Media enquiries
Please contact Professor Sol Picciotto:
Skype: Sol.picciotto
email: email@example.com
Phone +34-943-579800


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(Cross-posted from Off the Charts - the blog of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)
Raising the minimum wage would help the economy, CBPP Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein writes in the latest edition of the CQ Researcher.
Two well-established facts help back up this argument, Bernstein says:
The first fact is that the American economy is made up of 70 percent consumer spending.
Economists widely agree that an extra dollar earned by a wealthy person is less likely to be spent than an extra dollar earned by a low-income person….
The second fact Read More


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Third Millennium Bible (TMB) | New International Version (NIV) |
8 And Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. | 8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. |
Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved. (Third Millennium Bible Online) | Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online) |


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Catastrophic plan
A catastrophic plan is a low-cost health plan. It has a lower premium, so the amount you pay each month for health insurance is less than other types of plans.
The deductible for a catastrophic plan is high -- equal to the maximum annual out‐of‐pocket limits allowed under the Affordable Care Act. In 2014, for one adult, the deductible may be as high as $6,400, and for a family the total is $12,700.
These health plans are required to cover at least three primary care visits per year even if you have not yet met your deductible. When you see your doctor, you also covered for preventive care at no cost to you.
Catastrophic plans cover the essential health benefits that all policies sold through your state Marketplace must include. However, you do have to pay the full deductible before the plan helps pay for any of that care.
A catastrophic plan is not available to everyone. You are eligible if any one of these is true for you:
- You are younger than 30.
- You can't afford another type of health insurance.
- You are getting insurance for a family where each person is younger than 30.
- You can find a catastrophic plan in your state's Marketplace, under individual coverage. You cannot get a tax credit for this kind of plan.


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Event Name
- OR - Select an option belowWith more than forty TVs spread around this Parker bar, it's clear that FuNuGyz is serious about sports. And with DirecTV packages like NFL Sunday, NHL Center Ice and others, chances are that if there's a sporting event you want to watch, you'll find it at FuNuGyz, even the UFC fights. Since the place is so spacious, there are usually a few places where you can carve out your own spot for the afternoon to watch a game. Framed Broncos jerseys and other memorabilia hang on the walls, and there are a number of pool tables. During the week, FuNuGyz offers karaoke, poker and trivia nights, as well as Wii bowling and Guitar/DJ Hero. The menu includes a variety of wings, appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, Mexican food, soups and salads.


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Robert Gillespie Adamson IV (born July 11, 1985) is an American actor. He has portrayed the roles of Phil Sanders on the television series Hollywood Heights and Charles Antoni on Lincoln Heights. He currently stars as Noah Newman on the The Young and the Restless.
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